My youngest son, who is now four years old, learned to pronounce the letter “l” properly this weekend. I daresay that I will miss the “w” that typically stood in the place of a properly pronounced hard “l”, but hey, “wife” goes on. He spent the entire weekend searching for words that began with or contained the newly mastered letter and it was such a thrill to behold that his brother, mother and I proposed a toast in his honor (he wuvved it).
One of my greatest delights in life is when I have the privilege to witness the personal victory of another. No matter how big or small, life’s accomplishments are worthy of notice and celebration. It is on this basis and only on this basis that education becomes and remains something to be looked forward to rather than dreaded or shunned.
The process of education is taking on a whole new meaning to me as my sons begin to interface with the education system in the United States, a system that has its roots in and retains much of its shape from the transition between America’s distant past as an agrarian society and its more recent past as an industrial nation.
Loud clanging bells still mark the hour, preparing students for beginning and end of shift bells in shops, factories and manufacturing centers around the country that are increasingly hard to find. The industrial-era influence continues to shape the architecture of most schools with an austere aesthetic. Sure, computers are plugged into the “wired” schools of our advanced era, but in my view it is generally lipstick on an outmoded jig.
What is needed is a new template, one that takes the realities of our current era into account. For starters, our students need to move around more and eat better. No matter how many facts we fill their minds with, a child who leaves the educational system with a diploma and a diagnosis of obesity is at a disadvantage. Many schools, particularly on the West Coast, are revamping their cafeterias and meal programs with the help of passionate innovators like Jamie Oliver. It’s a good start, but we need more!
With regard to my two previous posts on the future of our country and of the freedom we have enjoyed over the last two centuries, we are in desperate need of programs and tools that help educate the future electorate that walk the halls of our educational institutions. What good is a specialization in this, that or the other if you do not understand what role you have in maintaining the delicate balance between anarchy and tyranny made possible by a Constitutional republic?
In my previous post Civic Virtue and the Rise and Fall of Empires I quoted Benjamin Franklin on the necessity of forming and training our youth in wisdom and virtue. There is no greater challenge faced by educators today. Unless we get this right no effort expended or dollar spent to put the American educational system back in the game will have any meaning.
Education is a tremendously inspiring and engaging process when delivered correctly. The future of the world rests in the hands of an educated and virtuous electorate and we must do all within our power to create a system that meets today’s needs and answers today’s challenges.
As an aside, if we fail on this point we had all better start practice saying: “Wong Wive the King!” No pressure!
Gregory Hake 
Pingback: The Antonym of Mediocrity « FlyingGma's Blog
For those of us living in the middle of the education reform movement playing out in Washington DC these days, we pay inordinate amounts of attention to this topic these days. Yesterday, Michelle Rhee resigned as the “reformer” Chancellor of the beleagured DC public schools, and her tenure singularly affected our Mayor’s race — the first time education has ever been so dispositive in an election in the District. After reading voraciously on this topic, I finally found an article from this week’s Washington Post that articulated what I think is truly lacking in our schools across the board: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/08/AR2010100802741.html
And don’t get me started on the lawyers who cannot write in a profession where writing is what we primarily do!
At least I can take solace that my 3 year old asked me why bats and owls are nocturnal, and when pressed as to where he learned the word “nocturnal,” he told me “school.” There is hope! To close the loop, I taught him the word “diurnal” to reinforce that parents have the primary responsibility for educating their children.
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Great article, Joe! How do we make that happen? There must be a starting point somewhere.
As a side note, my eldest son and I had exactly the same conversation when he was 3 and I, like you, felt compelled to enlighten him on the word “diurnal.” The next 6 months were filled with questions about which animals were nocturnal. Isn’t parenting and by extension, teaching, grand?
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Just noticed constraints is mispelled. Feel free to correct. I feel smarter for reading your posts. Great job!
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Thank you. In which post?
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I mispelled contraints my response to your question regarding student-teacher ratio in your “Simple things…” post
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I may step on some toes saying this but I think the issue in Minnesota is the teacher’s union. They are constantly asking for more pay and less work. If the teachers do not receive a pay increase because of financial constraints they are always looking for less time in the classroom. How does that benefit the students?
Student-teacher ratios in our school are low. In the primary grades we try to keep them around 20-25 per teacher. Intermediate grades are 25-30.
There is a school district in Minnesota(not ours) that has a hefty bank balance. So much that the State of Minnesota is borrowing from them. Their school board is considering a four day school week. This is usually considered when financial times are difficult. The only reason I think they would be consider this is for the teachers to have a shorter work week. Who wouldn’t love a four day week and a long weekend every week?
How will this benefit the students? I don’t think it will. I am in favor of having the school year all year long and I think there would be less retention problems due to the summer break. The students would benefit from that but I don’t think the unions or teachers will ever go for it.
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I think that we spend so little time on grammar and reading in our schools because it requires time. When I speak of time I am refering to the teacher’s time. If you make the effort to teach your students to write you must read what they write, edit it with them and read the rewrite.
When I taught K-3 grades I took very little work home with me in the evening to correct. Later when I taught 5th and 6th grade I took hours of work home with me each evening due to the writing that I required them to do in response the required reading for my class.
Teaching writing skills takes more time than a lot of teachers want to give.
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Do you feel that the student-teacher ratio is a key driver in this? If the ratio were to go down, would the demand be more reasonable on our teachers’ time?
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Great posts! You have spoken to my two greatest intelletual passions…public education and our Republic. We will surely lose the Republic without an educated electorate.
As for the education system in the United States. I have spent the last 15 years helping to build partnerships between schools, parents, and the community. It is time to radically change (by this I mean to proverbially blow it up). I believe and there is evidence to suggest the reason we rank sooo low in science, technology, engineering and math is we do not teach our children to read. Not just to understand the written word, but to learn, to analyze and to create ideas. Here is my solution: Prek-3rd grade teachers must be reading teachers, using math, social studies and science as content not process. If one cannot read, one cannot do math, write, science, computers or social studies. In the fourth grade forward you can add process to the other subjects, but reading strategies must continue to be taught through the beginning of high school. If you do this you do not have to teach to a high stakes test because students will be able to comprehend the tests.
Excellent points regarding food and exercise. Good doses of both will support a good learning enviornment. One without the other and we fail.
There are many great teachers. They need to stand up create the good schools.
This is my mission. Thanks for the space. Lisa
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Very practical steps, Lisa. Thanks! Flying Grandma (who posted before you on this topic) is in general agreement and I am too. I remember being shocked in business school that the overwhelming majority of my fellow students had only passing writing skills. The foreign students had a better grasp of the mechanics of English than did those who had English as a mother tongue! Why do you think we spend so little time on grammar and reading in our schools?
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I love the description of your interaction with your son. I wonder how many fathers are aware of such milestones. A good education will never take the place of a caring family, it would seem that is the place to start to raise a virtuous electorate. Thanks.
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Many are, but I guess the point is that many aren’t. If you took the time to create a child, make the time to raise it!
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One telling tale is that our President sends his children to private schools. I would do the same but for him to risk the back lash of public opinion to insure his children’s future he must have weighed the expected results.
From my experience you won’t get the kind of education from private schools that you are suggesting is needed but it is a definite step up from most public systems.
This is one area that parents and family can assist by filling in some of the chasms in our educational system. I’m not suggesting home schooling as again it is the rare family that possess all the ingredients to successfully educate. What I’m suggesting is taking the responsibility to be a part of your child’s education. Reading with them, eating meals with them, playing with them and I guess most of all talking and listening to them. Who stands out to you as an important positive influence in your childhood, I’ll bet it was the person that talked with you and listened.
Great post Gregg. I do think this in not too much to expect of our citizens.
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I wholly agree with Benjamin Franklin’s quote regarding the necessity of training our youth in wisdom and virtue. The problem lies with the number of mandated educational items.
I taught school for nine years and then left to work at our family business. While I was there, each year there was a new mandated item that we needed to teach.
I think for education to be successful, every student needs to be able to read. Once they can read the next step is to be able to understand what they have read. Next they need to be able to write well about what they have read.
If our educational system can deliver students who can read, think, and write well the possibilities are endless. How we get there, changes constantly.
Above all we need to develop a love of learning and encourage going beyond the worksheet mentality that permeates our educational system. Worksheets are easy for the teacher but don’t inspire the students.
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Those mandates must’ve been frustrating! I absolutely agree that reading is a fundamental starting point, for with the ability to read comes a passport to higher learning. By the way, congrats on your pilot’s license…quite an achievement!
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excellent post, thanks
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Thank you! Enjoy your day…
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This is something that has real life implications for the future of our country. There are so many good ideas for the reform of education, but there is much inertia, some of which is natural, and some of which is people putting on the brakes out of self interest. If you’ve been coasting as a teacher for the last x number of years, and don’t want to change because you’d have to *gasp* work, you should dust off your resume. The system can’t function as it is for much longer, it simply isn’t doing the job of educating well enough. And for the teachers who care enough to make a change, it’s time to think outside the box. How do the kids of today interface? How do we encourage the right use of technology? Is our education system dynamic enough to keep up with the current pace of societal changes? How do we make it that way? I hope that education as it is today will be unthinkable in ten years. Let’s not let the dumb American stereotype continue.
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I read a startling article sent to me by a friend yesterday that listed a bunch of stats, including the fact that the OECD ranked the USA 27th for student math literacy and 22nd for student science literacy out of 33 nations. It’s not just time to make changes, in my view we’re approaching the “it’s too late” phase and we risk losing a generation or two if we don’t act quickly.
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